In the beginning...

A long time ago, I didn't like dirt, worms, gardening, noxious odors, or decaying material. I liked my carbon in paper form, neatly bound, preferably containing a beguiling story about horses and a young girl.

Then I went to law school. I had kids. I learned to appreciate the concrete world around me, not the fantasy world in a book. And then I found gardening books, and my nirvana was complete.

So the truth is I didn't set out to compost, much less compost with worms. After politely ignoring my mother's love of plants for 26 years, I began gardening in the tiny front court of our coach house off Addison, more as a way to fill the time before the beginning of law school than as a bona fide interest. A casual purchase of red salvia from a neighborhood Walgreens turned into using my brother's car during his honeymoon as a vehicle for plant purchase from farther afield. By the time I had grown my first sunflowers taller than Pete, I was hooked.